Interpreting the Qin in Tokugawa Japan: an inquiry into the nature and causes of Ogyu? Sorai's (1666-1728) studies on the Chinese Qin music

Abstract

The presentation tackles an extremely important issue in East Asian music and Tokugawa intellectual history – the question why political thinker Ogyū Sorai, in the last phase of his career, composed a series of works on the qin through his reading of the two ancient manuscripts that were discovered in the early years of Kyōhō. Written in Japanese and comprising merely seventeen sections, Sorai‘s Kingakutaii-shō has been looked upon as a short introductory essay prepared for non-literati musicians. Moreover, the other three works, Yūranfu-shō, Yūran kyoku, and Shūfūraku-shō, were deemed unanimously as mere transcriptions of the music and text preserved in the two scrolls. Nevertheless, close scrutiny reveals that Sorai consciously applied Confucian teachings to political issues through his music projects. Sorai was awesome in this regard not merely because of his expertise in Chinese philology, or his detailed administrative suggestions, but due to his ability cunningly to manipulate existing facts and present them in a manner that was convincing to his contemporaries. In short, Sorai himself was absolutely conscious of the political implications of his qin music studies, both within Japan and without. Therefore, an in-depth inquiry into the nature and causes of Sorai‘s studies on qin music is indispensable in pursuing a full picture of Sorai‘s ideology. The results drawn from this academic adventure will not only shed new light on the history of East Asian music, but also will address crucial lacuna in the study of Tokugawa intellectual history.